NIH may get 3% at the cost of cuts to Pell grants

For those here who are not obsessed with the NIH budget, the usual process has been for the President to lowball and then lobbyists and Congress raise the budget. This year things are a LOT different. The Senate is proposing an increase of less than 1% with dictates on spending that mean the real effect is less than that. The house, as above, is proposing 3% by cutting Pell grants.

September 30, 2011

WASHINGTON — House Republicans released a proposed budget for the 2012 fiscal year on Thursday that would preserve the maximum Pell Grant at $5,550 but change the program’s eligibility criteria, make deep cuts to colleges that serve minorities, and block enforcement of some of the Education Department’s controversial program integrity rules. One beneficiary of the proposed legislation: The National Institutes of Health, which would see its budget rise by 3.3 percent.